


to genetically engineer a better world (one superpowered baby at a time)

by axilet



Series: This Family Is Alright [6]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: A+ Parenting, Behind the Scenes, Canon - Video Game, Child Experimentation, Gen, Good Intentions, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:19:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axilet/pseuds/axilet
Summary: In which Lucrecia lays out her parental expectations. It's always important to get on the same page with the other parent on that subject, so of course it doesn't happen.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, Google Docs revision history informs me I created the doc in 2013. Three years later, this snippet is complete at 1k words. Truly, this accomplishment is astounding.

“No, Vincent,” Lucrecia says with great patience when he confronts her, afterward: “I assure you, I volunteered.”

He doesn’t want to believe her. Doubt clouds the usual clarity of his gaze into an opaque incomprehension better suited for a perfect stranger or a being from another dimension. They had gone hiking up the mountain trail together, once. Two beings alone but not lonely adrift in a harsh world of black and white. He had given her one of his rare smiles, slyly laughing eyes turned up at the corners as falling snow flecked his dark hair and she’d thought, fleetingly: _I could fall in love with this man._

It feels so long ago, before Hojo had proposed and she had accepted. A lifetime dedicated to her work means that old habits die hard. Lucrecia doesn’t regret her choice, not then and especially not now, when it is becoming increasingly clear that they had never understood each other all that well. Caught up in the tantalizing rush of new romance it had been easy to overlook the abrasions where their disparate personalities caught and clashed. She imagines that her own face must reflect some of his blank disbelief--what, how, why. The President’s assassin in tailored blue, become staunch advocate for an innocent baby--it is almost laughable, if it does not also inspire such contempt.

 _This is why I picked him instead of you._ Hypocritical pretensions at morality are for other people, not for her husband; he intuits what is needed to be done and then he goes ahead and does it with little fuss or angst. Lucrecia contemplates the merits of attempting to justify herself to Vincent versus the merits of simply walking away. It has been months since they’d last spoken at length. This she does regret, but it is impossible to remain friends with a man who is so obviously pining. 

She finally relents. “Do you trust me, Vincent?”

“Of course,” he says. He’s obviously lying. Lucrecia presses on regardless.

“Then trust me to have the safety of my own child at heart,” she says bluntly. “This isn’t some completely untested procedure conducted in some mad scientist’s unsanitary basement. This is a project run and executed by two of the greatest minds in Shinra’s employ.” Your boss, in other words, she doesn’t say. “There is no need to call my son an experiment as though he’s the spawn of some evil ritual.”

Vincent grimaces. “You can’t be that naive, Lucrecia. Surely you know why the President has been so generous with your funding. He means any product of the Jenova project to be a super-soldier--the first in a long line of invincible war machines that would render even SOLDIERs obsolete. Is that really what you want for any children of yours?"

Lucrecia feels compelled to exchange this small honesty with some of her own. With any other Turk she would hesitate but she knows that Vincent will never betray her, not this way at least. “The three of us were employed to carry out a commission,” she says carefully. “But as with any custom work the creator is free to indulge in artistic license; to render an idea, that most organic and flexible of subjects, out of her own paints, materials, and dreams...”

“Creative vandalism,” Vincent translates, with a flash of his usual humor.

She chuckles. “You've had the privilege of meeting Jenova. She's remarkable, isn't she? Think of what she, and her people, just have seen and heard, the works they built. The legends say that they could speak to the Planet itself. A whole civilization rose and fell before the dawn of humanity. I like to think of my son as a link to that age. More, a catalyst for the transformation of our own. If he takes after me in any way, he’ll make it happen.”

“I thought you were supposed to be a scientist,” Vincent says, almost sounding accusatory. “You sound more an idealist.”

There’s a subtle warning in his voice; she chooses to be amused. “There’s a difference?”

“For a scientist in Shinra employ, yes,” he says, and the accusation is definitely there this time. “From his first breath your son will be company property. A tool of war has no time for frivolous dreams.” Vincent can get very bitter once he discards subtlety. Lucrecia only smiles, her irritation flickering away too fast to leave an impression.

“Really?” she says lightly, as light as a girl’s feet dancing upon a deep bank of snow. “A true child of the Planet--who could really stop him, in the end, if he chose to follow his own mind?”

Vincent gives her an alarmed look. “Lucrecia,” he says slowly, “what are you saying?”

Lucrecia smiles brightly. “What are you thinking, Vincent? What else could a mother want? Only a better world for her child to grow up in.”

“A better world…” Vincent leaves it hanging, like a question. Lucrecia waits for the expected cynicism, but he only looks tired. He shakes his head. “Is that what Hojo wants as well?”

“Of course.” She’s ready to bristle at the first sign of jealousy or insinuation.

“My assignment won’t last forever,” he says. “Other Turks...they’ll have their own way of doing things.” He pauses, struggling with his next words. “It’s...good that there will always be someone by your side to support you.” This clearly costs him and he looks toward the door longingly.

Deeply touched, Lucrecia rises to clasp his hand before he can escape. “Thank you, Vincent,” she says sincerely. “No matter how many Turks they send my way, you’ll always be the best one I know.”

He nods awkwardly, extricates his hand, and not-quite-runs away.

Alone, Lucrecia rests a hand on the growing child in her womb, and thinks of the future.

_end._

**Author's Note:**

> Originally meant to be part of a longer story about Lucrecia meeting Gast, Hojo and Vincent, but that's good as shelved; any writing mojo I once had is pretty much gone. Unless the FFVII remake works a miracle or something. I really want to write the AU where Hojo is the one who dies that day, and this version of Lucrecia lives. She would be the more humane, but also probably the more terrifying parent :)


End file.
